There are 63 Issy’s in total, all called Issy, but they each have different cities on their hang tags and tush tags. We are often asked why Santa Barbara Issy is so expensive, so we will give our observations on the subject.  It is a mixture of facts. If you look at page 232 and 233 of the Ty Beanies Tracker Third Edition Book, you can see how they were released.

First was New York Issy 6^th Gen (the only one with “2000” on front of hang tag), and that was expensive and hard to acquire because it wasn’t available at retail, you had to spend a night at the Four Season’s Hotel in Manhattan to be able to buy it on checkout. Minimum $500/night/room back in February 2001.

Next Ty released 47 at retail with 7^th Gen (UK) tags and 8^th Gen (US) tags.  Collectors often worked together to help one another complete their collection. Retailers got mixed assortments and there were speculations about which were harder to find, Dublin, for example, but I think it could be in part due to what were desirable cities for collectors, increasing demand for those.

It was a surprise when Ty introduced another 15 cities five months later, and also reproduced the previous retail releases in 9^th Gen, apart from Santa Barbara. It never had another production run. It only came with a 7th or 8th Gen hang tag.  Therefore, supply was less and demand high.

The price guide gives individual values for all 63 Issy’s.

Pleaser visit our Issy Santa Barbara Beanie Fact page.